


Desperately trying to figure out why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets

by DaintyBoots



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Dark, Graphic Description, Hunter POV, Hunters, M/M, POV Original Character, Panic Attacks, Serious angst like whoah, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-20
Updated: 2013-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-12 11:09:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaintyBoots/pseuds/DaintyBoots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Thin fingers ran through blood-soaked hair as he pressed his face to the side of Hale’s, gasping for air."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperately trying to figure out why the kamikaze pilots wore helmets

**Author's Note:**

> I'm super sorry you guys. 
> 
> Unbeta'd, forgive and point out mistakes.

He watched silently as the dark, congealed blood was swept off the axe, Brant carelessly dragging it against the dead yellow leaves. The agonised screams followed by the dull, squelching thunk still clung to the interior of his ears, echoing around his head. It was always the same. The soft give of the flesh, the resistance of the spinal column. Brant was an expert at the swing, see, you had to time it just right, no hesitation. Wouldn’t want the damned creature to start healing half way through. So it had to be clean, quick. Always the same.

 But this time, this time he supposed it was different. For one thing, it wasn’t some defecting rogue omega they caught running rampant around the forest. This one took timing, surveillance, careful planning.

Alphas aren’t known to be easy to kill.

Hale didn’t go down without a fight. Two of the boys were dead, and three others had pretty substantial injuries. They had already been rushed off to the A&E. He wondered vaguely if they’d be able to save Harriet’s leg. Seemed like a long shot. It had practically been hanging off her when they dragged her into the SUV, the drag of pink and red striped flesh mingling with her panicked screams. Still, he guessed that’s what happens to you when you try burying a dagger into an Alpha’s neck.

His eyes came to rest on the body, or, what was left of the body. Hale’s head was bowed, hanging limply, his chin resting against his chest. Cantor had tied the hands together too tight, he always did. Crossed and swollen, even in this light he could see they were a dark purple. He never even retracted his claws. Fighter to the end, he guessed. Hales had that reputation.  

His gaze skittered over the place where the torso ended. He had no great desire to inspect the tangled mass of intestines and organs that were still clinging onto the Alpha’s midriff. It gave him an sad, otherworldly look. The rest of him, his lower half, lay in a pool of blood on the forest floor. The steady thrum of scarlet droplets still pattered against the yellow leaves. Always the same. The same eerie atmosphere, like everyone was waiting for the wolf to open his red eyes and leap down at them. The wary same silence.

But again, no, this time was different. In between the soft beating of blood against the crackling undergrowth, there was a small human sound. Crying. He didn’t need to lift his gaze from the corpse to know where it was coming from. The teenage boy they had found with the Alpha. The one he had pushed out of the way. Probably pack, but definitely human. Looking at him now, he couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Skinny, pale and with a kind of childish buzzcut. Previously, he had been struggling furiously in the grip of Russ and Vito, but now, they were all that was holding him up. His knees seemed to have given way, and even in his slack position, it was clear that he was sobbing, tears making the collar of his overlarge hoodie wet. For a second, all he could take in was the curious mirroring effect bouncing between the Alpha and the boy. Both of their chins rested against their chests, as if in some excruciating prayer.

“Let the kid go, he’s hardly a fuckin’ threat now.”

Brant’s voice cut through the scene. He always sounded like he gargled gravel with whiskey. It went well with the knuckle tattoos and tenuous anger management. “One tough son of a bitch”, his father had said proudly. He had never commented on the irony of that. Brant was his brother, and he would always love him, but he didn’t have to like the guy.

Vito and Russ released the boy, and he dropped slightly before staggering forward. He straightened up, stepping towards the prone upper half of Hale. He didn’t seem to notice the carnage he sloshed through, his sneakers making wet slapping sounds. Lifting a trembling hand, he gently touched the Alpha’s bloodied face, an outstretched finger tracing down the length of his nose, tapping it softly. It was a gesture, a gesture from what now must seem like a long time ago. Stretching up onto his tiptoes, he managed to brush his lips lightly against Hale’s.

Oh.

Before his mind was fully aware of his legs’ intentions, he was striding towards the miserable little scene that was playing out in front of him. The boy slunk back slightly, keeping a blood-stained hand pressed to the torn fabric of the Alpha’s leather jacket. He didn’t even flinch when he saw the switchblade. The kid seemed past caring what happened to him. It was surprising, the lump in his throat. He was painfully aware of his brother and the rest of the group staring at him, he could feel their stares burning into his back. But all he could feel right now was a kind of horrified numbness as he watched this child press his face into the bloodied remains of someone he had clearly loved. He swallowed the lump.

“Here, uh, let me.”

It didn’t take long to cut him down, he and the boy took the weight of the body, lowering it. He stepped back hastily as the boy seemed to collapse to the ground with the body. Now he was this close, he could see that without the fangs, Hale looked young, too young to be an Alpha. All of a sudden it didn’t seem as fair anymore.

The kid held what was left of the body close, lying the broken form across his lap. Thin fingers ran through blood-soaked hair as he pressed his face to the side of Hale’s, gasping for air. Inhaling in and in and in, wheezing breathlessly. It was the same noise Tara used to make when she was little, when she was afraid of the dark and didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to be alone. The hiccupping gasps pounded in his ears, burrowing into his brain. He was vaguely aware of his brother calling his name softly; he could hear the rest of them moving away. They were leaving without him. It was to be expected. Hunters have emotional breakdowns on their own time.

The forest had grown acutely stiller now. He could feel it. They were all alone. No animal would stray near after what had just happened in the clearing. Not for a long time. The boy’s panic attack seemed to have subsided slightly. At least, those spine-shaking gasps seemed to have left his body. But as he stood and listened with a kind of horrid fascination, they were replaced with something so much worse. The boy began to moan, low in his throat. It was a kind of primal keening that he had only heard from dying animals, a kind of sacred, distressing lament that reverberated off the trees surrounding them. Cradling Hale against him, he rocked him backwards and forwards, wiping the dirt and blood away where he could with trembling hands. Pressing his forehead to Hale’s, a whisper rose up from him, spiralling up through the clearing, into the night air above.

“I’m so sorry Derek, oh god please, I’m so sorry, I’ve got you now, I’vegotyouI’vegotyouI’vegotyou, _I’ve got you._ ”

The last three words came out as a kind of pained hum. With a kind of sadistic pleasure, his mind viciously casts him back to the moment when he stood back and handed Brant the axe. Hale had looked at the boy, he had looked him dead in the eye. And he was trying to tell him that it was all going to be okay, but he couldn’t seem to do it. The Alpha had this kind of terrified look on his face. He knew that look. He had seen it when he’d gone hunting as a kid. It was the scared look dying animals gave to their mates. The look that said “ _But I don’t want to leave you alone here in the dark._ ”

As he watched the boy place the palm of Hale’s hand and gently trail it across his own face, murmuring into his fingers, his stomach began to ache. He felt as if someone had taken an axe to his own goddamn torso, slicing through the flesh and bone. And now he was standing in the fucking forest in the middle of fucking nowhere watching some poor kid hold half of the person he loved. And for what, for fucking what? Some code he had never actually read? Some family pact that he never agreed to in the first place? He couldn’t stand it, he just couldn’t stand it. He spared the boy one last glance before he turned away. The colour of tear-tracked blood and dirt seemed to burn underneath his eyelids.

Slowly, he began to walk away, each step leaden. The low, tortured moans still permeated the night air, filling him up with a kind of self-horror he had never known. He had helped end a tiny world tonight, and it didn’t seem right that he should intrude on this grief any longer.

He began the long walk home.

**Author's Note:**

> Again, super sorry. This was created through repeated listenings to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings.


End file.
